Solons learn ‘dual airport’ policy nonexistent

CLARK FREEPORT—The “dual airport system,” which Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya is said to have been pushing to refer to the Clark International Airport as complementing the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, has turned out to be nonexistent, lawmakers learned in a hearing here on Thursday.

“This dual airport thing seemed meaningless,” Pampanga Representative Joseller Guiao said, during a hearing held by members of the House committee on transportation.

Lawyer Wyrlou Samodio, Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) representative, confirmed that the Office of the President has not issued any executive order to the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and related agencies providing a set of guidelines on how Naia in Metro Manila and Clark airport (CRK) in Pampanga province would work together, especially in the decongestion of the former and the development of the latter.

Lawyer Emigdio Tanjuatco III, president of the Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC), said the DOTC should be asked to be “specific and categorical” about the two-airport system if this was really the direction being laid out by the government for CRK, a former American military airport until 1991 when the Senate voted not to extend the 1947 military bases agreement with the United States.

A DOTC official in the hearing promised to submit a written reply to the committee’s technical working group headed by Guiao.

CRK is not trying to compete with Naia, Guiao said, adding that in a budget hearing Abaya had kept repeating the phrase “dual airport system” while referring to the two airports.

Located 80 kilometers north of Manila, CRK has 122 domestic and international flights weekly. It served 1.3 million passengers in 2012 and 1.2 million passengers in 2013. Courier giants UPS and FedEx maintain cargo operations at CRK.

Tanjuatco said since he assumed the post in October, the managements of CRK and Naia had not met to discuss the integrated operations of the two gateways.

“It would be a big push if a national policy is made [on the partnership of Naia and Clark],” he told lawmakers.

CRK has been tapping into central and northern Luzon provinces where the markets consist of at least four million travelers. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon